Hi. I'm a painter, a writer and a mother of three teenage sons, one with a severe disability. This is a journal: riotously disorganized, full of art, food, children and everyday domestic events. Unless you are a friend or family member you may not be interested, but you are welcome to look. Artists who are parents may find some
common ground here, as well as parents of children with special needs. For art only, see my site: nancybeamiller.blogspot.com

Saturday, February 20

Maybe I will start a new blog category: speed painting. The way I am using this term, it is a subset of alla prima painting and means getting the image onto the canvas in the fewest strokes possible. We are talking half an hour or less! Speed painting was necessitated in this case by the pain of painting while looking into the white glare of snow...excruciating. I wore a hat to cut the glare but even so...ouch. Note to self: no more snow painting midday!

My youngest son took this picture of me as I was crouched on the landing painting (I think he was so pleased that I was painting his snowman!) Very circular..taking a photograph of someone painting a sculpture created by the person taking the picture. Whoah, am I dizzy!

Sunday, February 14

i carry your heart with me(i carry it inmy heart)i am never without it(anywherei go you go,my dear; and whatever is doneby only me is your doing,my darling)i fearno fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i wantno world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)and it's you are whatever a moon has always meantand whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows(here is the root of the root and the bud of the budand the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which growshigher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

Friday, February 12

For once, the scaremongers got it right! We were smacked upside the head with a full force blizzard Wednesday, whomping us with another avalanche of snow and ice on top of the heavy snowfall we'd already experienced just four days earlier!Icicles on the porchSeveral kids came over to play.The boys had a ball!I gave in to the urge to bake.In the middle of dinner the power went out. Candlelight was pretty, but no heat was no fun.At one point I started burning old stretcher bars. You might ask why my husband the furniture maker did not bring home wood scraps when he heard the forecast. Ask away!Anyway, we were without heat, light or any heating power (no stove) for over 24 hours, and I have to tell you even this little tiny taste of natural disaster was pretty darn sobering. Makes you think, especially about how lucky we are 99.99% of the time..Despite the temporary exigencies, we were lighted and warmed by the camaraderie of wonderful neighbors and the generosity of friends who opened their (warm!) homes to us.

Monday, February 8

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.

--Helen Keller

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Philadelphia got 28.5 inches of snow this past weekend. My neighborhood "only" got somewhere about 22. It's the biggest snowstorm since 1995, when the twins were toddlers and the banks of snow were way over their heads! They toddled along sidewalks with high walls for a few weeks, probably wondering what kind of strange, mutable, new world they had come into.

Friday, February 5

My neighbor called me over today to see a little dead screech owl he had found and asked me to take its picture. Hiroshi has a particular tenderness for owls, and even helps band saw-whits at a certain time of year. He told me this little fellow had most likely been gotten by a cousin, the Great Horned Owl, who often eats only the heads of its victims. Nature red in tooth and claw indeed!

November

by Elsa Beskow

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The photographs on this site were taken with either a Canon EOS T3i, a Nikon D-70, an iPhone, or a Canon Powershot SD1000. For photo reproduction/purchase inquiries please contact me at nb (at) genrecookshop (dot) com